Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A40080
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A friendly conference between a minister and a parishioner of his, inclining to Quakerism wherein the absurd opinions of that sect are detected, and exposed to a just censure / by a lover of truth.
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Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing F1706; ESTC R1363
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82,434
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183
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to feed us without our industry with Manna and Quails as he did his Church in the Wilderness or by the Ravens as he did Elisha or to make the small provisions we have to abound by an inexhaustible increase as he did the Widows barrel of meal and cruse of Oyl and in the Gospel the five loaves and two fishes though he could soon introduce the Golden Age to make it a perpetual Spring and to cause the earth to bring forth all her fruits and teem her riches to us of her own accord though God could quickly do all this and more though he could translate us instantly and carry us up into a better habitation though he could perfect us out of hand and the next minute wrap us into the third Heaven and rest us in Paradise though this be in his power yet we see it is not in his will It is not his pleasure thus to dispense his favours nor to pour out his blessings all at once For though the Divine power and Goodness too be both of them infinite yet do not engage God though an Almighty Father in doing good to act like natural Agents both alwayes and all he can For the acts of his Power and Goodness are determin'd by his infinite Wisdome And he dispenseth his gifts according as there is necessity and occasion for them That the Spirit helpeth us to understand old truths already revealed in Scripture we confess and pray for his assistance therein but to pretend to such miraculous inspirations as the Apostles once had or to new revelations beyond what was discover'd to them is a horrible cheat set up at first by St. Francis and St. Bridget and some other Fanatical Friers and Nuns of the Romish Church whose steps the Quakers do now follow but the delusion and falshood of such pretences will appear if you consider 1. How highly these new revelations disparage the Holy Scripture which if it be true and may be believed declares it self to be a perfect and sufficient rule in order to salvation 2 Tim. 3. 17. and accurseth all that shall preach any other Doctrine Gal. 1. 8 9. and in the close of that holy Book a woe is denounced to all that should add any thing to it or take any thing from it So that they who would make new additions by daily inspirations make God himself a lyar in commending that to us for a perfect rule which needs continual additions and the preaching of Christ and his Apostles at this rate must be thought imperfect and that Word which should try the Spirits must submit to every new revelation Nor do the Papists more dishonour Gods Word by making their Traditions of equal value to it than the Quakers by esteeming their new revelations to be as much from the Spirit of God 2. Consider how contrary these new revelations are to Gods constant method in regard they came naked without any miracles to attest them for when did God ever send any new Doctrine into the World and did not also give the Preachers thereof a power of working miracles to confirm that it was from him Moses had this power when he was to set up the Law Jesus when he was to preach the Gospel to the Jews the Apostles when they were to convert the Gentiles But as St. Austin notes when once the World did believe this power ceased which was only given that they might believe Now if God had sent the Quakers with any new revelations how comes it to pass he hath given them no power of doing miracles or why do any believe them whenas God doth not bear witness to them as in other cases he alwayes did shall we take their own words for it or esteem their new Doctrines not confirmed with any Divine Powers as highly as we do the Holy Gospel witnessed by many thousand miracles this were to make our selves as foolish as those who dote upon them and to encourage every Cheat to impose his fancies on us as Divine Revelations who hath the confidence to say he is inspired 3. New Revelations do manifestly contradict the Faith of the primitive Christians and holy Fathers who called the Scriptures the truest rule of Doctrine the ancient measure of Faith the Divine Standard the Repository of all things necessary either to Faith or Manners they esteemed it great impudence to affirm any thing without their Authority or to expect any truths beyond what was written they desired not to be believed unless they proved their assertions by Scripture Did they not in every Councel examin all Doctrines and Opinions by the written Word of God and condemn those for Hereticks who invented new fancies not agreeing to it And when the Gnosticks Montanists and Messalians pretended to Prophecy Raptures and Inspiration they were censur'd as Impostors and Deceivers By all which it appears that if the Quakers had held forth their new Revelations in those pure and zealous dayes they had also been solemnly convicted and denounced Hereticks and why should we embrace that for a truth in these last and worst of times which the best Ages of the Church did reject as a notorious falshood 4. And yet this new Doctrine of new Revelations is not more false than it is mischievous to those who do believe it for hereby their faith is uncertain as their Teachers fancy and poor deluded souls do receive falshood and railing non-sense and blasphemy as if they came from the Spirit of God They despise the ancient and pure certain and fixed principles of Christianity received from Jesus and his Apostles sealed with the blood of Martyrs and retained by all good Christians and admire the discourse of a bold and empty man above them all they take upon them to appoint new wayes of worship and reject the old even the very Sacraments which Jesus himself instituted they neglect Learning themselves contemn it in others and would bring the World into an Egyptian darkness if others were of their mind and all this and much more they do for a thing that never was nor never will be proved for a dream a meer fancy and a miserable mistake which none can believe till they have first bid adieu to all sense and reason So that in meer pity to those mis-guided souls who follow this false and fantaltick light I cannot but make this digression to convince them that they adore a lie for Divine Revelation to the great hazard of their eternal damnation Par. But do you deny all Revelations Min. I own those Revelations which are upon Râ—…cord in the Holy Bible which is the Word of God wherein he hath revealed his Will to the Church but no other Revelations do I hearken after Par. But the Quakers tell us the Bible is a dead Letter but the Word of God is quick and powerful so is not the Bible Min. By such like sottish wayes of Reasoning I conceive the Speakers among them
of sin not from the imputation of it and we confess sin was the occasion of our Saviours sufferings but it was our sin not his own He offered himself to suffer all the miseries of life and death which we had deserved and it was as just in God to inflict them on him as it is in a Creditor to make the Bonds-man who is able and willing to pay the debt of an indigent Bankrupt And thus Christs sufferings do still more strongly prove they are the just desert of sin since even a surety for sinners cannot escape them Par. The satisfaction which you have given me invites me to give you some further trouble in the resolution of my remaining doubts You cannot be ignorant how the Quakers fasten the charge of Pbarisaism upon the Clergy in having their Pulpits exalted and do they not herein manifest an horrible pride and come within the lash of that reproof of our Saviour Mark 12. 38 39. Beware of the Scribes which love to go in long cloathing and love Salutations in the Market-places and the chief Seats in the Synagogues Min. What our Lord condemned in the Scribes and Pharisees was their pride in chusing the high places in the Synagogues in a vain presumption that they exceeded all men in Learning and Holiness herein the Quakers discover not our pride but their own Ignorance for it is not for preeminence that we use our Pulpits but for convenience not that our persons but that our voices may be exalted and herein we aim not at glory to our selves but edification to our People and this is according to the example of Ezra Neh. 8. 4. who did erect a Pulpit of wood not in obedience to the Ceremonial Law because it was no where commanded by it but that he might stand above the People that he might be the better heard while he interpreted the Law to them But I beseech you let us not so far humour the Quakers as to take notice of all their idle impertinencies and cavils but if you have any thing of moment to object against us I am ready to give a reply to it and further to engage you to give credit and attention to what I say I profess to you that I have not spoke any thing hitherto but what I am perswaded in my Conscience is agreeable to sacred truth and I hope you will believe me without an Oath Par. An Oath would be so far from giving me any assurance of your sincerity that I should for that be the rather moved to question it for what more expresly forbidden than swearing what so contradictory to that sacred truth you profess to own I have not much convers'd with Books but I have heard that the primitive Christians whose Piety was approv'd as Gold in the Furnace of a dreadful persecution practis'd such an honest and ingenuous simplicity to that exactness and accuracy that they accounted it a disparagement to be put to an Oath But seeing you hold the lawfulness of it I hope you will prove it out of Scripture and if you can make it in any case a Duty and an act of Religion I shall then change my Opinion of this generation which I esteemed most impious and on the contrary think it very Religious through the multitude of Oaths that are so frequently in it Min. Pray tell me how the Quakers instruct you concerning an Oath Par. That I shall do presently out of a Book I lately met with intitl'd Antichristianism reproved written by Rich. Hubberthorn in answer to a Book of Mr. Tombs who it seems did vindicate the lawfulness of an Oath lawfully administred wherein Hubberthorn endeavours to make it out that all Oaths are utterly unlawful by Christ's command and therefore all such as do vindicate them are guilty of the charge of Antichristianism Min. Before I proceed in this Controversy you must tell me whether or no Oaths were ever lawful Par. Hubberthorn will answer you for his words imply that they were Therefore he tells Mr. Tombs that he failed in his instances of Abraham Isaac David and others swearing for they lived under the first Covenant Min. If Hubberthorn by the first Covenant means the Covenant of works he shews a great deal of Ignorance and folly in saying that Abraham and others after him lived under that Covenant And therefore before I proceed any further upon this discourse concerning Oaths I shall make a digression to unfold this necessary point of Religion about the nature of the two Covenants wherein as in many other things the Quakers are grosly Ignorant and Erroneous You must know then that there is a twofold Covenant which God out of his gracious condescension hath vouchsafed to enter into with man according to the different state and condition he found him in The first was made with Adam for himself and his posterity whilst he remained in the state of Innocency And this by Divines is called the Covenant of works because an exact obedience was required from him and a reward promised him upon that obedience Adam violating that Covenant and thereby falling from his Original happy state he and all mankind are made utterly uncapable of receiving any benefit thereby And now we are to consider man in another state viz. of sin and misery And Gods compassion was such that he was pleased to enter into a second Covenant with him according to the degenerate estate he was faln into and this is usually called a Covenant of Grace because a more superabundant measure of grace is seen and infinitely more favour shown in Gods entrance into Covenant with Man in his lapsed condition for his restitution and reconciliation than in his state of Integrity for his preservation This latter Covenant God made with Adam soon after his fall in these words The seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head Gen. 3. 15. that is God shall send his Son Jesus who shall be born of the seed of the Woman and he shall destroy the power and dominion of the Divel And this afterwards he plainly repeated to Abraham Gen. 22. 17 18. And entails this promised seed to his Loyns But his Son Isaac that Type of this promised seed God commands him to offer up on Mount Moriab which command when he was about to execute a countermand stays his hand and a Ram is by Gods good Providence provided for a Sacrifice to intimate to us that the promised seed was not then to be offer'd up but should be suspended for a time and that in the mean time God would accept the Sacrifices of Rams Bulls Goats c. as Types and Figures that the promised seed should in due time offer up himself a full propitiatory Sacrifice Oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole World Now to say that Abraham Moses and David were under the first of these Covenants viz. the Covenant of works is notoriously false for that Covenant was but a small time in force and after Adam's fall